Thank you to those teachers who were to reply to the Successful Strategies with Students e-mail. I have not had an opportunity to gather them in one place to publish on the Network, so I will do this this week. If you have not replied to this e-mail, please do as I expect a reply from each teacher in the building. We often have more time to brainstorm as teams or departments than as a whole school. This is an, albeit rather limited, first opportunity to do this this year. I plan on creating other opportunities as well.
There are several links in this update. Do your best to scan the information and prioritize so can make a plan for coming back to this update and follow up on the information herein.
School Improvement Plan
Last Monday, department chairs reviewed, asked questions, and offered suggestsions for revisions on a draft of the this year's School Improvement Plan (SIP). There comments and suggestions were very helpful, and I am proud to present it to you (virtually, by clicking here).
You will notice that it uses the same revised template for unit design that I have shared. It also has four proficiency scales that we will use to track our progress toward the goals. I have a plan for how we will use these. In addition, you will notice that, rather than MAP and AYP data, the data that are quoted are referred to as MAP index scores. Since Missouri received its No Child Left Behind waiver, AYP and discrete, year-by-year scores no longer exist. I previewed this with department chairs this summer.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I can visit with individual teachers or departments.
Monday's Faculty Meeting
Our 10/8 faculty meeting will focus on students who are on the Autisum spectrum; this is part of our faculty meeting series on supporting students who come to us with a variety of needs and/or diagnoses. The plan is that the presenter will give some background information on spectrum and then moveint some basic support strategies and their applications.
Morning Announcements
All school-wide announcements should be submitted digitally from now on; this will streamline the process of reading and posting our morning announcements for parents. Click here to do this.
Tech Updates
As a reminder, you may receive updates from the Tech Department by e-mail, text message, Twitter, or Facebook. Click here and follow the steps in Jason's blog. Obviously, when internal systems are down, e-mail will not work.
Students and wgcloud.org
Wgcloud.org is a cloud-based backup to which students can save their work. Students can save work here at school and go home or to the library and continue to work. It also allows for student-to-student and student-to-teacher collaboration and is a single point for any device across platforms to produce presentations, reports, etc.
Please take some time during Discovery, GEMS, or Learning Strategies to help log students on to the cloud. It is important that all students be able to login because several elective teachers are using the cloud and, because students are from across teams, not all students have access. In addition, students who are using their own devices benefit from backing up to the cloud.
Click here to view an instructional video for logging students on to wgcloud. It's a YouTube video, so you will have to show it from your teacher computer. This should not take more than 10 minutes; most of the problems with logging in have been user error, so please make sure students are following instructions precisely. All students should be logged into the cloud by October 19th, 2012.
Being Proactive
If you have not yet completed the Google reporting observed ALLY, BULLY, BYSTANDR, and VICTIM behaviors, please click here to do so. It is in the best interest of our students for you to respond; it also protects you against being personally named in any potential law suit about bullying.
Upcoming Dates
There are several links in this update. Do your best to scan the information and prioritize so can make a plan for coming back to this update and follow up on the information herein.
School Improvement Plan
Last Monday, department chairs reviewed, asked questions, and offered suggestsions for revisions on a draft of the this year's School Improvement Plan (SIP). There comments and suggestions were very helpful, and I am proud to present it to you (virtually, by clicking here).
You will notice that it uses the same revised template for unit design that I have shared. It also has four proficiency scales that we will use to track our progress toward the goals. I have a plan for how we will use these. In addition, you will notice that, rather than MAP and AYP data, the data that are quoted are referred to as MAP index scores. Since Missouri received its No Child Left Behind waiver, AYP and discrete, year-by-year scores no longer exist. I previewed this with department chairs this summer.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I can visit with individual teachers or departments.
Monday's Faculty Meeting
Our 10/8 faculty meeting will focus on students who are on the Autisum spectrum; this is part of our faculty meeting series on supporting students who come to us with a variety of needs and/or diagnoses. The plan is that the presenter will give some background information on spectrum and then moveint some basic support strategies and their applications.
Morning Announcements
All school-wide announcements should be submitted digitally from now on; this will streamline the process of reading and posting our morning announcements for parents. Click here to do this.
Tech Updates
As a reminder, you may receive updates from the Tech Department by e-mail, text message, Twitter, or Facebook. Click here and follow the steps in Jason's blog. Obviously, when internal systems are down, e-mail will not work.
Students and wgcloud.org
Wgcloud.org is a cloud-based backup to which students can save their work. Students can save work here at school and go home or to the library and continue to work. It also allows for student-to-student and student-to-teacher collaboration and is a single point for any device across platforms to produce presentations, reports, etc.
Please take some time during Discovery, GEMS, or Learning Strategies to help log students on to the cloud. It is important that all students be able to login because several elective teachers are using the cloud and, because students are from across teams, not all students have access. In addition, students who are using their own devices benefit from backing up to the cloud.
Click here to view an instructional video for logging students on to wgcloud. It's a YouTube video, so you will have to show it from your teacher computer. This should not take more than 10 minutes; most of the problems with logging in have been user error, so please make sure students are following instructions precisely. All students should be logged into the cloud by October 19th, 2012.
Being Proactive
If you have not yet completed the Google reporting observed ALLY, BULLY, BYSTANDR, and VICTIM behaviors, please click here to do so. It is in the best interest of our students for you to respond; it also protects you against being personally named in any potential law suit about bullying.
Upcoming Dates
- We have conferences from 4-8pm on Tuesday and Thursday.
- We have a half day and conferences from 1-5pm on Wednesday.
- I will be out on Thursday for a DESE-led, day-long meeting about state requirements for teacher evaluation (which, because of our No Child Left Behind waiver, requires the use of measures of student growth in learning . . . more on this next week).
- And, Friday, 10/12, we do not have school.
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